


Cranberry Orange Scones

by mustachio



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: A Bit Naive, A Bit Selfish, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Scones, Steve Is a Well Meaning Man, but well meaning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 14:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2272989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustachio/pseuds/mustachio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn’t wanted to come here—not really—but his wife had insisted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cranberry Orange Scones

The parking lot of Night Vale Community Radio station is dark, eerie. It looks no different from any other parking lot, even this late at night, but the air around it is stale and has a putrid smell that makes a person doubt their own corporeality.

Steve hugs the too full Tupperware in his hands closer to his chest. He hadn’t wanted to come here—not really—but his wife had insisted. Steve had wanted to call first—invite Cecil to the house instead of bringing food to the station. Yet here Steve is, holding a container stuffed full of cranberry orange scones, unable to bring himself to enter the menacing building.

He adjusts his hands, digs his nails into the palm of of his hand until a drop of blood bubbles up to the surface. The station’s door doesn’t open for a moment after his blood touches the lock and Steve half suspects—half expects—that Cecil has made it so that he doesn’t have access, but after another moment the lock comes undone.

With a deep inhale, Steve enters the building, doesn’t exhale until both feet are over the threshold. The door closes softly behind him, but echoes with the force of a slam.

The inside is as dark as the outside. Not one person seems to be around. Steve wonders he and his wife were mistaken. Maybe Cecil really has gone home. The lone car in the parking lot is unmistakably Cecil’s, but he could have walked home. He walks down one of the hallways and sees a sliver of light peeking through the bottom of one door.

"Cecil?" Steve calls and is entirely unsurprised when Cecil calls back,

"Go away, Steve!"

Steve continues on. He finds Cecil in the break room sitting on the floor next to one of the many memorial markers poking through the room’s tile. The name engraved on the stone is Leland. He remembers Jerry. He’s been dead just over two years now—vaporized by the shape in Grove Park that no one would acknowledge or speak about.

Well, no one but Cecil. Steve was proud of him then. Cecil never acknowledges the weirdness of Night Vale, but he did it then. Steve tried to tell him so afterward, but Cecil had just gotten angry at him. _Don’t you see that acknowledging things you shouldn’t is dangerous!_ Cecil had yelled at him before storming off.

“Your sister is worried about you,” Steve says, putting the scones on the table in the middle of a circle of graves. “You’ve been spending a lot of time here.”

“Where I spend my time is none of your business, Steve Carlsberg,” Cecil snaps. “Why don’t you go home and do something useful with your time like change your ratty old hubcaps.”

Cecil stands, but wobbles on his feet when gets up. There’s the slight scent of alcohol in the room and when Steve scans the area he notices a bottle of brandy behind Stacey’s grave.

“You should come back with me, Cecil. I know it’s probably hard for you to go back home what with Carlos still missing and all—“

Cecil cuts him off with a snarl, moving closer to shove a finger in Steve’s chest.

“You _don’t_ know, Steve! You don’t know anything at all! You don’t know what it’s like to have the person you love most taken from you, you don’t know what’s best for anyone, and you don’t know anything about Night Vale!” Cecil punctuates every three words with a hard shove against Steve’s chest.

He slumps back down to the floor, drawing his knees to his chest, and resting his forehead on his knees. He isn’t crying, but Steve gets the feeling that if Cecil were alone he would be. Steve shifts his weight from one foot to the other and twists his hands in his shirt. They should have just invited Cecil over for dinner. Cecil hates to yell at him in front of Janice. Janice would probably do a better job of making Cecil feel better, anyway.

After a moment of silence, Steve sits down next to Cecil. He rubs Cecil’s shoulder and is pleasantly surprised when Cecil doesn’t shrug him off.

“It’s going to be okay. Things will get better soon enough.” Cecil doesn’t respond, but he still doesn’t shrug Steve off so Steve takes that as a sign that it’s okay to continue. “I know you don’t like my scones, but I made some for you. They’re cranberry orange. I didn’t know if you kept any food here or if you had anything to eat today so I thought it would be a good idea to bring them. You need to eat and drink lots of water. Your sister really is worried about you, you know.”

Cecil doesn’t answer and after another moment or two of silence Steve gets up off the floor. It’s clear his presence here isn’t doing anything to help and he’d rather not stay long enough to make things worse. He dusts his hands off, straightens his shirt.

“Carlos is not _missing_. He's _trapped_. There's a difference.” Cecil grumbles.

Steve blinks at the non sequitur, but smiles. He was beginning to get worried. Except for when they first met, he doesn’t think Cecil has ever gone a full two minutes without arguing with him.

“Remember, Cecil. Eat and drink lots of water.”

He turns and walks out of the break room certain that he didn’t do much to make Cecil feel any better, but relieved when he hears the pop of the Tupperware lid opening.

**Author's Note:**

> Come follow me at my new writing blog [polyships](http://polyships.tumblr.com). I'll be posting snippets from things I'm working on and possibly the occasional original story.


End file.
